Desperation Smiling
by Shadows42
Summary: Levi tries his hand at desperation, and Eren gives a go at acceptance. They leap, swinging on empty gas and frozen wires, and miss by a hair, a hand, a lifetime. In which Levi is a grown man and Eren is a brat. And in which nothing goes right. -Canonverse-


**Wow, this appeared out of bumfuck nowhere. Have fun with it. **[Crossposted from AO3, yes it was. Don't stab me.]

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><p>Levi grew up in filth and blood and desperation.<p>

The first, he learns to deal with by cleaning. Obsessively, compulsively, things have to be clean, clean, clean, _clean_.

Blood has never gone away, though now it hisses away in a flash of burning steam, now it doesn't stay and stain. Unless it's of those who are too stupid to survive.

_(I hate meaningless deaths.)_

The last, he's never learnt to overcome. But it's okay now, it's no longer a surging wave, no longer a blackened wall that cages him in like the three goddesses.

It's just an unseen, unheard burden now.

Every morning, he wakes before the sun. The first thing he does is clean. Then the day plunges into routine; training and plans and paperwork and - work, work to survive, survive to live, live to die.

Corporal Levi is Humanity's Strongest, but the strong don't win.

The winners are the strong ones.

* * *

><p>Eren grew up in a normal family.<p>

A loving mother, an absent but caring father (he doesn't think of needles, keys), and after a trip that got a little too hectic, a devoted sister.

A smart best friend, the drunk uncle-like family friend, the nice people who share food, the bullies down the street, the singing woman, the weeping man.

It's all there, a nice little package that explodes in red when the _titans _come.

But Eren charges forward, because he's a hunter, because he's never known differently.

_(If you win, you live.)_

There's nothing he can do but train and fight, because this is the world now; cramped spaces within towering walls, and the few that struggle, venturing into a world that he can only dream of, fight for.

Titan shifter Eren Jaeger is Humanity's Hope, but hope is meaningless without means.

That's all he can provide, the means.

* * *

><p>Levi had fallen in love.<p>

More accurately, the bone-breaking weight of desperation had clawed its way up his skin, leaving him feeling filthy all over and under and within, and gradually, so slowly, pulled him down, down, down.

First had been, of course, denial.

Levi is not an eloquent man, nor is he patient or tactful.

_It's just the determination._

What Levi hates almost as much as slimy messes are people who go halfway and give up.

What the fuck was the point of going halfway?

So it doesn't come as a surprise to him, that he would be so fascinated by the most determined of them all.

_It's just the potential._

There's so much damn potential in there; not just the strange ability, nor the raw drive, but the years to come, the bonds the boy has made, the doors that lay before him.

_It's just the power._

Because he is powerful, the most powerful tool.

No matter how hard you trained, how skilled you were, how experienced you became, a single bite and it all came undone before your eyes.

Levi still thinks he's a fucking idiot.

But...

_It's just fucking Jaeger, that shitty brat._

* * *

><p>Eren trips over a few weeks, and face-plants his way into 'crush territory', leaving 'admiration territory' just a few steps behind.<p>

He knows that admiration is the furthest thing from understanding, and maybe that's why the first few memorable weeks had been so charged, the air crackling with an intensity that had made him twitch at the slightest sound.

But if there's something that Eren has no shortage of, it's passion.

And his stubborn, thick-headed brain had turned itself to the man that had stood above them all.

It took a few goes, a few lethal moments of trial and error, but he had started to see past the shroud of feathers, fluttering through the air and deceiving, illusionary shields that shut off the man beyond the wings of freedom.

He had been clawing out the neck of a titan just smaller than him when the entire world tilted.

A whir of wires and a hiss of gas, a flash of blade and a disappointed glare at the dirtying blood, and the Corporal had spun his way through three titans, a revolving silent storm of the strongest soldier.

Eren doesn't fall in love gracefully, rather he takes out a good number of titans with roaring rage as he has his epiphany.

He doesn't act on it immediately, rather he stews for a good three days of tension and snappish responses and confused stares and absent-minded cleaning.

On the fourth day, he marches up to the man's room, clutching a broom like a shield which he drops when he finally realises he's still holding the dusty thing, and knocks twice.

* * *

><p>They had ended up together.<p>

Levi had been fucking confused.

The brat had knocked on his room, slipping in at his call, with absolutely repulsive hands, and promptly said in rushed, messed up words something like "_Irufoeyo_".

His response had been a raised eyebrow.

The brat had shaken his head, opened his mouth, and tried again.

"_I think I love you...sir."_

And the desperation had laughed in response, reared its ugly head, and Levi had fallen to the monster.

_"So, shitty brat? What're you going to do about it?"_

The kisses had been sloppy and disgusting, but the desperation had agreed and Levi clenched his fist against the urges to clean, had tried to focus on the heat that was the overly warm brat before him.

What the fuck does he do now?

* * *

><p>Eren wonders how things are meant to continue from here.<p>

He knows that the Corporal is over double his age, he knows that in a world where humanity is reduced to sheep meandering in overpowering walls every rising sun is a miracle, he knows that his position is precarious, and that the danger is only leeching itself onto the Corporal, sucking out the fluids of life that sustain such power, such beauty.

But in the end, Eren's always been the type to ignore all blaring alarms, duck past well-meaning arms that try to shield the jade and jaded gaze, and run full force into a world that isn't ready for such passion.

So they settle into a routine.

Eren, one night, when the cold air is prickling his skin, when the moon is lighting every shadow that staggers like a titan, asks his precious Corporal about secrecy.

_"Do we have to keep this a secret, sir?"_

_"You filthy brat, you want to be executed because I've been executed for being a disgusting pervert?"_

_"Sir, you make it sound like I'd die immediately if you did!"_

_"Are you saying I'm wrong?"_

_"...No."_

_"Go the fuck to sleep, you idiot."_

And so this story will never be told.

* * *

><p>There's the better days.<p>

When they brush hands as they pass in corridors, when Levi steps into to help Eren with his cleaning, when they share fleeting, sharp, soft, moments alone in various rooms.

When they lie together in Levi's bed, both clean, breaths synchronising, and it's like the world stops for them, and it's like they can hear each other living through the air that thrums with a promise of more to come.

There's the worse days.

When Levi cannot help but push the boy away, harsh comments, closed doors, locked bars.

When Eren cannot help but push too far, digging into festering wounds, tearing at walls like only a titan can.

Those are the days that make the better days seem all the more precious to Eren.

Those are the days that show Levi all that's wrong with this, all that will never work out.

* * *

><p>Two months after they start working as one, sleeping as one, living and learning and killing as one, Eren loses both arms to the one he loves on a mission gone horribly wrong.<p>

An expedition like any other, but with triple the amount of titans, with aberrants that showed far too much intelligence, with too many screaming deaths, with too much.

Eren shifts, and it goes well for a few moments.

But he's only human.

He has his limits, limits that are quickly reached when he is overwhelmed, the titans munching on dribbling meat, grabbing and pulling at flailing appendages that once could regenerate.

Levi can only watch from afar as the tall figure collapses with a pained screech, echoing through the bloody forest, drawing ever more monsters to him.

When they have been finally wiped out, the one titan no one is to hurt is shrouded in steam, but nothing is growing, nothing is working.

Levi swings over, cutting open the one place that holds all of their hope, but has to hack at the advancing stringy red tendons, until the only thing he can do is cut cleanly through the arms of the one he perhaps cares for more than others.

* * *

><p>The arms are back in no time, but the touches, the secretive glances, the mutual sharing is not.<p>

_"It's over, Eren."_

Levi breaks it off, and he sees the light in those green, bright, clean eyes fade.

_"Yes, sir."_

He cannot stand it.

Turning on his heel, he misses the new light that seeps into the boy's eyes.

It's desperation, but far beyond that, more cutting, more destructive.

Humans are prideful creatures.

Once the desperation has had its way, it gave way to its older brother.

Green eyes dim with broken acceptance.

* * *

><p>Levi sees what he has done like he sees his path in battle.<p>

Clear, with openings for changes, anticipation of future movements. Clean.

The brat throws himself into the training, and almost dies more than once being a useless idiot. He stops hanging around the kitchens and the hallways, always willing to lend a hand. He stops getting into pathetic fights. He stops going on spiels about the titans, about his determination to kill them.

He stops.

But he has people to support him, so Levi'll leave the worrying to those brats.

The Corporal merely continues on, he has no time for distractions, not when the titans are still advancing, when funding is starting to cause trouble, when a new batch of recruits are coming.

* * *

><p>Training is not without its results.<p>

Eren knows he is getting better, both at holding his form for longer, for recovering faster, but also at killing titans in human form.

Humanity is beginning to turn the tides, tides that he can only yearn to see.

* * *

><p>They do win, in the end.<p>

They win, and Levi wears the wings of freedom with his usual apathetic countenance.

He takes the one he once cared for out to a field that is now clean, though the soil is ruined with dissolved titan.

Green eyes look up at him, and he drowns all over again.

He's been drowning since day one.

Levi unsheathes his blades, and the boy kneels, smiling.

* * *

><p><em>"Corporal, I cleaned the bathroom for you."<em>

_A few steps._

_"No you didn't, you useless shit."_

_A sigh._

_"Which part did I do wrong this time?"_

_"All of it, obviously."_

_"But sir-"_

_"Go eat dinner, you shitty brat. I'll clean up the mess you made."_

_"I can't even see a mess, where's the mess-"_

_"Your face will be fucking messier than this bathroom if you don't get down to the hall now, brat."_

_"Right, sorry, sir!"_

_Steps fade away._

_A finger swipes along glass._

_"Don't be sorry, idiot."_

* * *

><p><em>"<em> _Corporal, I wonder if-"_

_"Wondering will get you killed, you-what are you doing?!"_

_"Well, I was wondering if you were ticklish."_

_"Fucking hell, you shitty brat, why would I-"_

_A low chuckle resonates through the air._

_Everything stills._

_"...Corporal? Was that-"_

_"No! Get the fuck to sleep or I'll turn you over to shitty glasses first thing in the morning."_

_Fingers crook into skin again._

_A squirm and a helpless laugh._

_"What the actual fuck, Jaeger?!"_

_"That's...that's adorable, sir."_

_"Get. The. Fuck. To. Sleep."_

_"Sir!"_

* * *

><p><em>"I'm sorry, sorry, I'm sorry..."<em>

_"If you're sorry, you're not carrying their deaths properly, idiot."_

_"...sorry, I'm sorry..."_

_"Just keep going forward, or you really will be sorry."_

_"...I'm sorry."_

* * *

><p><em>"I love you, sir."<em>

_A smack sounds._

_"Sir?!"_

_"I'm allergic to mushy shit. You have terrible eating habits."_

_"What does one have to do with the other?!"_

_"They're both squishy. It's revolting."_

_"Isn't what you do to me every night also squishy?"_

_Silence._

_"Sorry, Corporal! I just remembered I had something to do, I'll see you later!"_

_"Oi."_

* * *

><p>The blades swing down, and they cut straight through.<p>

It's clean.

Oh, so clean.

Just how Levi likes it.

* * *

><p><em>"Live freely."<em>

_"I will."_

_"Don't be sorry."_

_"I won't."_

_"See the ocean for me."_

_"Yeah."_

_"I love you, Levi."_

_._

* * *

><p>The desperation smiles, and lets it hold go.<p>

Takes a step back.

Acceptance offers a handshake, a bow, and sweeps into centre stage.


End file.
